


Candy Floss Heart

by Jeevey



Category: Oasis (Band)
Genre: Childhood, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Gen, Uncle Liam, dad Noel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:41:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26612389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeevey/pseuds/Jeevey
Summary: April, 2016.
Relationships: Liam Gallagher/Noel Gallagher
Comments: 18
Kudos: 36





	Candy Floss Heart

Sonny and the tiger looked at each other. Its eyes were golden brown and yellow, and it looked at Sonny as though it might eat him. Not angry, but quite casually, as if swallowing Sonny up might just be the thing to do. There was a fence but Sonny had forgotten it. _Could_ it swallow him up? Or would it have to take bites to get him down? The tiger blinked slowly and lifted its chin. It seemed to know everything. Sonny suddenly felt he wouldn’t mind being swallowed, as long as it was all at once. He wouldn’t like it if there was biting.

The tiger began to lash its tail. It shifted its paws, and its gaze sharpened on Sonny’s face. He felt that it wanted him somehow. He felt that maybe if they were quite alone he might sit between its paws, lean back on its massive furry chest, and they might just have a talk about things. 

Sonny put out a hand for his father’s shirttail and cried, “Dad, did you see? It sees me.” But it was a womanish sound when he tugged, and Sonny looked up to see a pretty girl with her boyfriend and his own fingers clutched in her dress. “I thought you were my dad,” he said stupidly.

The girl giggled and looked at her boyfriend as if Sonny were the most embarrassing thing in the world. “Sorry,” she said, in the way that meant she wasn’t sorry. As they walked away the boyfriend whispered in her ear, and she exploded in embarrassed giggles. There were crowds of people all around. Dad was right in the middle of them somewhere, he knew. They were all here together, Sonny and his brother Donovan and their dad. They wouldn’t go away. Sonny just couldn’t see them, that was all. His heart beat fast in his mouth. Everyone was so tall and walking so fast. Fucking knobheads, Dad would say. Then Mum would hush him and he’d say it again, careless and happy. Sonny began feel shaky and push through the people. He wanted his father. It was only strangers everywhere he could see. he ran and ran, but still couldn't find them. He started to cry, but then he couldn’t see and shoved harder until he ran into someone big and fell down, crying.

“Hey, hey. It’s all right,” the big man said. He scooped Sonny into his lap and said quiet things that Sonny couldn’t quite understand, though it sounded nice. His ears were plugged and his face hot with the slimy feel of crying. He hid it against the big man’s shoulder so he wouldn’t see. The stranger patted his back until he was calmer, and then asked if Sonny had lost his mum.

“My dad,” Sonny said. He wiped his wet face on the stranger’s shoulder and sat up. “I can’t find my dad.”

“Fuck me,” the stranger said quietly. His fingers stilled on Sonny’s back. “It’s you.”

Sonny looked at him for the first time. He had a scruff of beard that was specked gray, with untidy hair like an explosion, and eyes that were perfectly still. His big fingers touched Sonny’s hair, and a strange look went over his face: sadness, and softness, and something like shame. “Let’s take you back to where you were,” he said, and placed Sonny slowly on his feet. “Your da will be back for you soon.”

Sonny looked at the stranger uncertainly. Never go anywhere with strangers, that’s what Mum said. But when you’re lost, always go back to the last place you remember and wait, she said that too. Was going back to where you were with strangers okay? He looked around. He couldn't see the tigers anywhere, and he couldn't read the signs to find out. The big man was still on the ground, looking at Sonny in a way that made him feel shaky and sad. 

“Do y’ know who I am?” he asked. Sonny shook his head. “I’m your da’s brother. I’m Liam.” He looked steadily at Sonny, waiting to see what he would do.

Sonny was suddenly afraid. Liam was bad. They fought about him sometimes, Mum and Dad. But he’d seen pictures of them together at Nana’s house, one brother grabbing the other laughing, Liam with a smile as big as the sea. He’d heard the music, Dad’s guitar wailing and Liam’s voice like a roar. And the unhappy way his father’s mouth turned down when someone said his brother’s name. Sonny had thought Liam was dead, maybe. But here he was, looking just like Dad and his eyes beginning to crinkle at the corners.

“At the tigers,” Sonny said, and Liam’s face cracked open in a smile as big as the sea.

It wasn’t as far as he’d thought. Just down a path or two and around a long loop. On the way they passed a man spinning candy floss in his machine, swooping up long threads onto a paper cone and clipping them to a wire above his head.

“Do y’ want some of that?” Liam asked.

Sonny hesitated. It smelled good. “Mum doesn’t like us to eat it,” he said. “She says it ruins your teeth.”

“Well it does, but not all at once,” Liam said. “Besides, that’s what God made dentists for, innit?” Still Sonny wasn’t sure. You shouldn’t let strangers buy you candy. He looked at the ground, not knowing what to say. “I’m having it,” Liam told him, and got in the queue.

Sonny watched his uncle curiously. He’d never seen a grownup eat their own candy floss before. Liam stood carelessly in line, not noticing when passersby started at him now and then. “What color do you like best?” he asked.

“Blue,” Sonny said. 

“Blue’s good,” Liam allowed, “But white’s the best. Do y’know why?’ Sonny shook his head. “Blue colors your teeth, right? Anyone can tell you’ve been at it for hours after. But white, once you’re done it’s gone. It don’t stay on your mouth like the blue and pink.” It was their turn at the cart. Liam looked down at Sonny. “I dunno which one I want today though. What do y’think?”

“White,” Sonny said. Liam grinned, and just like that they had a secret.

They sat on the bench opposite the tiger and ate candy floss. Sonny didn’t hold it himself, just bit it off the paper cone when Liam held it, so he reckoned it didn’t count. Liam sat in a way Sonny had never seen a grownup do before, like he never had to go anywhere again.

“Where’s your kids?” Sonny asked him after a time.

“Hm?” his uncle said. He sounded like he’d been thinking of things far away.

“Didn’t you come to the zoo with your kids?” Sonny asked, embarrassed.

“Nah, my kids are a bit grown up for the zoo now. I like to come by meself and look at this fella.” He nodded at the tiger. It had got up and was pacing back and forth, lashing its tail and glaring with its yellow eyes. There were loads of people standing around, staring and snapping photos.

“It killed another tiger,” Sonny said. “They told us. They brought it a friend from another zoo so it wouldn’t be alone, and he killed it.”

Liam said nothing. He looked at the tiger, looked right through all the people and space between them so long and so still that Sonny thought hours might pass before he looked away. “I reckon he was scared. Angry, not sure what to do. Feelin’ trapped maybe. It’s not meant to live like that, y’ know. You could go mad being in a cage and stared like that all day.” He turned to Sonny, fierce and wary and terribly hungry. “Out in jungle two tigers could run as far as they needed to and then come back together when they were ready. Maybe…maybe being locked up in here, he just couldn’t get enough space to stop fighting.” 

His look made Sonny feel both frightened and excited. It was like sitting at the top of the Eye, like waiting for a firework to go off. 

“Do you still play music?” Sonny asked without thinking.

“No,” Liam said. He was leaned back against the bench, feet kicked carelessly out so that people had to walk around him as they went by, and he looked like he might say nothing more at all, or he might say something that would change everything.

“How come?” 

Sonny’s uncle’s eyes were huge and dark blue, with big dark brows just like his father. They looked like twins, Sonny realized. If Liam wasn’t so much bigger they would look like the same man, though his father’s eyes were never so sad as this. But no, that wasn’t true. Sometimes he did look as sad as this--when he thought he was alone. That was the difference. Liam looked exactly like this wherever he was. Sonny’s father had two faces, and one of them Sonny only saw by accident.

“Your da was my music,” Liam said at last. “When he was gone there weren’t nothing left to sing to.”

Suddenly Dad was right there in front of them in his gray shorts and trainers. Sonny flew into his arms. He was strong and hard, and he didn’t wobble at all when Sonny jumped. He smelled like his ordinary self in the strange smells of the zoo, washing powder and aftershave and the clean dry smell of his hair. He buried his face in Sonny’s neck and squeezed him tight. For a second Sonny felt that he was going to cry again, but it was Dad that was all damp when he pulled away. Sonny patted his father’s cheeks to make them dry. Dad muttered a few tangled words and turned to Liam.

“You couldn’t send a fucking text?” he demanded.

Liam hadn’t moved from where he was. He sat looking up with one arm across the bench and his feet sprawled out, the candy floss cone hanging loose in his hand. “No, mate,” he said. “I couldn’t send a fucking text.”

Sonny’s father shifted him in his arms, then put him down. “Are you letting him eat that stuff?” he said, pointing at the candy floss ends. Sonny wiped his mouth. 

“Nah, that’s mine,” Liam said calmly. “I like the sticky stuff, me. I had it when he come along.”

They stared at each other. Sonny’s father’s face was folded in anger, and Liam stared up at him as if he was sad and afraid and about to laugh all at once. Sonny couldn’t tell what they were about to do, but it frightened him. He touched his father’s hand. His father turned to him, and his face softened.

“Do you want to say goodbye?” he asked, quite differently. Sonny suddenly understood that he wasn’t meant to see his uncle again. He went to Liam awkwardly, tripped over his shoes, and tumbled into his lap. Liam caught him up and held him against his big chest for a long time, his beard rough on Sonny's face and his heart thumping slowly. “Tell him I love him,” he said in Sonny’s ear, and then set him down on his feet.

They walked away to go find Sonny’s brother at the snake house. When Sonny looked back he saw that Liam was leaning forward now, feet drawn in so that the crowd passed smoothly by him without looking. His face was hidden in his hands.

The sun had gotten bright out while Sonny was lost. Donovan was waiting just where he should, and Dad wasn’t mad at Sonny after all. Sonny told him about how he got lost looking at the tiger, and how he found Liam. He even told him about the candy floss. But when it came to the very last secret, even though Liam had told him to say it at the end, Sonny found that he didn’t dare tell.

**Author's Note:**

> Assim the Sumatran tiger and his tragic backstory are real. For the rest, I can't say.


End file.
